LeBron James Gave His Teammates This Chilling Motivational Speech Before Winning The NBA Title

LeBron James quieted all of his detractors with a dominating run during the 2012 playoffs that will go down as one of the single greatest playoff performances in NBA history.But you won’t believe how intensely focused James was to win his first NBA title.

In the spectacular Sports Illustrated cover story this week by Lee Jenkins, James revealed the super-intense speech he gave to his teammates in the locker room just before the Heat took the court in game 5 of the NBA Finals:

“This is what I told them,” he says. “If someone came to you right now and told you, ‘If you don’t win tonight you won’t see your family again,’ how would you play? Approach this game like your family is in danger. How bad do you want to see your family again?”

The Heat responded by blowing out the Thunder 121-106 in a game that wasn’t as nearly as close as the final scoreline.